Financial topics

[aeden]

We tend to call it the scofield deceptions since these sheep will not except was already written.
Same guy today who divorced wife and teaches corrupted promises to events.

[FishbellykanakaDude]

** 14-Mar-2020 World View: Gloom and doom

There's a certain amusing irony to my saying that I don't agree
with these "gloom and doom" forecasts, but that in fact is the case.

... Even as Covid-19 spreads
and grows exponentially, people around the world are looking for
ways to adapt and stay in business or start new businesses. This
is the way people act, and it's no different now.

... They're reworking supply
chains, implementing technology, dispersing employees or having them
work from home, and so forth. This is standard behavior in a country
like the US with free markets, where each business wants to maximize
profits and keep employees busy and happy. There are similar
motivations for governments and governmental organizations, who are
primarily motivated to maintain stability in their constituents.

As I've written in the past, I expect most companies to be at least
partially back in business by summer, doing whatever it takes ...

The only thing that can really prevent this is World War III.

The ONLY possible instigator of WW!!! (I'll leave it like that) is China, and only if it becomes actively suicidal.

The primary job of "the West" is to materially (convincingly) show China how perfectly suicidal it would be for them to start the war. Period.

What the CCP wants most is the continuation of their rule. They want that more than they want revenge on their "historical humiliation dispensing enemies". (This is the crux of my entire argument!)

They need internal domestic stability to continue their rule. The most efficacious "enemy" right now, and for the medium future, on which to place "believable blame for their troubles", is "the plague".

The tool of their internal repression (to guarantee stability) is not "military" but rather "surveillance".

They will massively expand "social credit" and other surveillance tech, and reduce their military belligerence toward their only reliable source of resources, which is "the West".

They will become, again, the major parasite on the economy of the West, and feed relatively quietly while biding their time trying to figure out how to get revenge on their "enemies".

They will do this until 2026,.. at which point they will once again be "strong" enough to threaten militarily.

[John]

** 14-Mar-2020 World View: GNP vs stock market

> A better way to have put the question is would the stock market be
> a buy right now if it were trading at discount to fair value? I
> think the answer to that question might possibly be yes. However,
> with the stock market in a massive bubble and having such a
> pervasive influence over the economy, the coronavirus may very
> well be the catalyst that pops the stock market bubble, takes the
> stock market to fair value and below, and sends the economy down
> with it.

Here are some relevant figures: Between 1929-33:

• the stock market fell 90%
• but the GNP fell only 35%.

https://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/ ... ssion.html

The stock market is a fantasy world, not much different than Las Vegas.
In the real world, businesses find ways to keep going, irrespective
of the stock market.

> It may be that stock market investors will stay cautious through
> the summer if they realize that a second more virulent wave may
> come in the fall. The US military is preparing for a second wave
> of coronavirus cases by next winter.

> https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/cor ... d09060460c

There are a lot of people who say they expect a vigorous V-shaped
recovery, starting in April or May. These are the people living
in total fantasy.

More realistic people are hoping that the virus spreading will
at least slow down during the summer. This is a possibility.

However, the realistic people are also aware that there will be
a new wave when the cold weather comes back in the fall.

[Higgenbotham]

This is from last weekend. Strangely, the herd on the boards are no longer this weekend quoting negative sentiment figures and pointing to those as a reason to be positive on the market. I am only reading that the herd is now negative. That means that even though the market is in a position to crash, it could actually rally from here. For me, that is too hard to call at this point because the Fed officials stated on Friday that they will now cut rates versus what we heard before that the July rate cut was mid cycle. The market didn't respond to that, but it might respond positively on Monday.

The above was posted Saturday, August 24, 2019.

The reason I looked back to that time is it reminds me a bit of this weekend in terms of the negative sentiment and near panic that many are experiencing (looking at the headlines on zerohedge gives one a good feel for this). At that time, I wasn't sure the market was going to crash as many were proclaiming on message boards. However, I feel that this weekend has a different quality to it and the odds favor a crash, in my opinion.

Vince, I agree with you. Monday might be the day that the public pulls the plug on their stock market holdings and the market has the generational panic day that will be remembered, the one we have been looking for all these years. If I were a 60 year old working person looking forward to retirement, this Friday short covering rally to 2700 would look a good opportunity for dumping all stock in my 401K so as to secure at least some chance of a decent retirement before an even more severe plunge takes place.

[aeden]

NO pre checks as you walk in and will take out whole sections of staff being infected.
The girls say it saves money as we wait for direction for months incoming on this issue.
The reply is documents are upcoming. The TQM system is broken.
Totally brain management top down and crushing middle mangers with silence to even internal standards.

Retired experts can train semi competent staff with screened staff when regional federal support medical equipment
is needed or when hot zones break out. The semi competent can bag them to prevent respiratory alkalosis and prevent hypoxia
issues.

Monkeys flying airplanes.

[Higgenbotham]

The point is, the same basic conditions arrayed in a different way, what physicists call self-organized criticality, can go critical, blow up, and destroy the world or destroy the financial system.

That dynamic, which is the way the world works, is not understood by central bankers. They don’t understand complexity theory. They do not see the critical state dynamics going on behind the scenes because they’re using obsolete equilibrium models.

In complexity theory and complex dynamics, you can go into the critical state. What look like unconnected distant events are actually indications and warnings of something much more dangerous to come.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/compl ... kets-crash

The current situation reminds me of something that I can't quite place but it essentially involves matter being able to transition between states with very little change in energy. Maybe it's the critical point on a phase diagram. But I think that's where the stock market is now. There is on the one hand a widespread knowledge that this thing is massively overvalued (which has potential buyers frozen), while on the other hand there is a widespread knowledge that Trump and the Fed are hellbent for reelection and crash prevention and will do anything toward that end no matter how crazy (which has potential sellers frozen). That puts the potential level of the stock market somewhere between who knows how low and who knows how high but the differential is massive, and it can all change very quickly.

I think this is the essence of whether there can be a crash, whether the potential sellers become "unfrozen" and I think they've now seen enough where they can.

[Higgenbotham]

Totally brain management top down and crushing middle managers with silence to even internal standards.

Today's organizations don't want people who can do the job. Because those who can do the job will see that total overhauls are needed top to bottom, including massive dismissals of management, and those who can't do the job (like Muilenberg of Boeing) know they are vulnerable if competent people ever get within 100 yards of them, so they aren't going to let it happen.

Now the consequences to that in the health care system may be coming due.

Read this doctor's emails:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... fragility/

He went out to the middle of Wyoming to escape the incompetence. He says in no way are urban areas capable or ready to handle this onslaught. Monkeys flying the 747s.

I have been a physician now for almost 30 years...

When I was a young medical student, a very old professor taught a course in medical ethics. In one of his most pressing lectures, he discussed the fact that the goals and ideals of medicine and public health were a complete 180 degrees from the wants and desires of a free market. He added that every time combining public health/medicine and free markets had been tried in history it ended in tears — usually bankrupting the society. It was his fervent desire that we not allow this to happen to the profession as we entered its ranks, and to keep an eye out for this at all times.

[aeden]

They do not want to know as indicated.
Befehl ist Befehl

[aeden]

reports flowing in Schenectady New York and Montreal over meat and can goods fights.
isolated reports for now

[Higgenbotham]

The Russell 2000 index of small stocks took out its 2018 low last week by a wide margin. This index has lost 35% since mid February. In mid February, it was below its 2018 high.

https://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advch ... e&state=11